Category Archives: Promotion

My first appearance – wrap up

At the New England Author Expo last Wednesday in Danversport, MA, I was ready. I had my talking points. I had my swag. I had my setup.

I sold nothing.

But people were impressed with the idea. My business cards went more than the cards for the books, so I ordered more and updated them. War Mage cards went more than Homecoming cards. The post cards, very few. The brochures, I think 2, and I passed those out myself.

The guy next to me had only his books. He was a bit OCD about them – if someone handled them, he would wipe the covers clean. He sold one. One guy looked at his set up, looked at my set up, and said, “Are you serious?” to him. “No business cards? Nothing someone can take away?”

One guy came up to me and said that he loved my idea, and wanted to see what would happen with it. He’s in line for the second book, he said.

I bought a book called a “digest” that someone did. He said it was meant to be like a “whet your appetite” kind of book, with short stories from his different worlds. I thought that, or an anthology of the writers in Paper Angel Press, would be a cool idea. However, thinking it over, I wondered if people would do that, or want to read the stuff for free on the website. The Digest is a good idea for people who don’t like the internet, but these days…nah.

I went to a panel about Marketing and networking. Got some good ideas. I asked about “swag”. 1) Make it useful. 2) Make it pertinent or symbolic of your book. (The guy next to me had 50 cent pieces lined up on his table, and I said, “Oh, what does that have to do with the book?” “Nothing,” he said. “I just figured if someone wants to give me two quarters for one.”) 3) avoid as much paper as you can. (bookmarks = bad “Nobody uses book marks anymore.”)

Now, I’m not a marketing maven. I don’t want to quit the day job because that’s where I get my inspiration from; and to rely on my muse to pay my bills is a very scary thought. I don’t plan on running all over the state and country to try and jostle my way into position. I make some money, fine. I made enough to pay for Hulu and Netflix for the next three months. That was awesome!

The way I do marketing is the way I do gardening.  I throw the seeds on the ground and hope some grow. Some will get eaten by birds– trivialized, or disappear under the Amazon ratings–but some will thrive and grow–someone will read it and I’ll have a fan.

My next appearance isn’t until October 2, at the RI College Homecoming Day. I might be the only one, because they were excited to see me at the College. Either that or I expressed interest early, like I usually do.

What I’m reading:

  • Best Intentions by J. Dark. Still.
  • Tarot Interactions by Deborah Lipp, just started.

Take a look at my Goodreads lists to find out what I’m reading and what I’m going to try and read. Be my friend!

I am on chapter 2 of the rewrite of Grimaulkin. It’s slow going because I feel I have rehashed this story so many times now, and I have to come up with seven years worth of stuff while he’s in prison (he gets out when he’s 22-23). I also have a new pintrest and instagram site.

Appearances, definite dates

Welcome if you’re new. Here are my appearances in the New England area, the definite ones:

New England Author Expo, July 27 from 4 pm-9 pm, Danvers, MA
RI Comicon, November 11, 12, and 13 from 10 am to 8 pm?, Providence, RI
RI Author Expo, December 3, from 10 am to something, Cranston, RI

I’ve also started on War Mage’s third book, tentatively titled The High Road. I did the planning like I did with Blood From a Stone, my NaNoWriMo book last year. I got together index cards and wrote out the main plot. Then I wrote out the subplots and their results. I gathered all the index cards together and put intertwined the subplots in the main plot. I only have five subplots, one not very well defined, but I’ll let the muses work on it.

I will admit, this method worked really well for Blood, because I could keep on task and each index card was vague enough that they let the muses and my mind think up the details. With Blood, I dictated it, so I really didn’t have the time to stop and rewrite like I do normally.

I think with this new one, I’m going to transcribe literally from my first draft, the composition notebook that I usually use. Composition books are portable, don’t need electricity, are easy to bring anywhere and I can sometimes hide my writing at work in it. Now, my first draft isn’t perfect. But I’ve found that I refer to a lot of things in it that aren’t in the second draft. The first draft is ingrained in my memory, which is why sometimes the second draft ends up being confused. Then I have a third draft to try and get the second draft ingrained in my memory. At least, this is what happened with War Mage. I went through six drafts before finally sending the one to the editor. And I personally feel that 1) it’s way too short and 2) it’s a hot mess because I went so far off the first draft. Although another part of me thinks that the character development in the final draft is the best.

I started listening to a couple of books that I had on Audible, (Hard Spell by Justin Gustainis, Hard Magic by Laura Anne Gilman and Butcher Bird by an author I can’t read) and noticed that almost all of them break the cardinal rule of “no info dump in the first chapter.” Also, they don’t go into the detailed description of people. Some description yes, but not the detail that my editor wants. When I listened to the audiobook version of my book, I noticed that the description dragged. It’s something I need to improve.

I dumped Hard Magic because the first chapter was the main character’s in detail discussion of how she gets ready for her day and an info dump of her backstory. I didn’t bother listening to the rest. I dumped Butcher Bird because of the bad grammar and writing. Hard Spell seems like  fun, even though the author did the info dump, it was interesting and something I need to aspire to. I noticed also that all three used the first person POV, and that Hard Magic and Butcher Bird used prologues. That’s one of my cardinal rules – no prologues. I read in a writing book somewhere something like “Prologues are scenes that don’t fit in the novel, but the author thinks are too good to get rid of.” I agree with that sentiment. In fact, in physical books, I don’t read the prologues until I finish the book, and I find that most of the time, they aren’t integral to the book.

Anyway, that’s what I’m up to these days. Writing, listening to books. A book I’m reading is Blueprint Your Novel, which kind of uses my index card method but converts it into lists. I’m also reading Heretic, which is a very interesting take on the Knights Templar.

Appearances

Here’s where I plan on being in New England to promote my book and books from Paper Angel Press.

New England Author Expo, July 27, Danvers MA
Autumnfest, October 8, 9, or 10, Woonsocket, RI
Big E, Some time in September – October, Springfield, MA
New Bedford Fall Book Festival, October 15 or 16, New Bedford, MA
RI Comicon November 11, 12 and 13, Providence, RI

I’m gunning for the RI Author Expo, December 3 in Cranston, RI, but that depends if I get a spot.

As for the writing…not so much this week. I was thinking about writing, but I didn’t actually do anything. I wrote in my journal for the most part, and even then I skipped 2 days. I started to work on the rewrite of Grimaulkin Rising. That has to have extensive rewrites. I’m not looking forward to that, though I want to get it done by the end of the summer.

I also have to start work on the next book in the War Mage series, and make sure that it’s LONGER. The torture isn’t going to be all it’s about. It has to be about the other magical creatures that he meets in Iraq. More dragons? Other wizards that aren’t dicks? The Black Lions? The development of his and Chrissie’s relationship? Need to get this together, start an outline or at least some index cards.

Wish me luck – I’m going to a job interview on Tuesday for a “Communications Consultant” at my company. Not quite a step up, but it’s a step over so that I can hopefully use my talents somewhere else. If I do that, then they own my creative mind and writing time will be cut even more. Maybe. We’ll see.

I have this vision…

about my display when I go to sell books.

I have on a small easel, the Paper Angel Press logo. On the two sides of the table are two 24×32 pictures of the covers of my books, hanging from a hanger contraption that is about sic-feet tall.

On the table, which has a plain black/dark green/purple tablecloth, are six copies of both books, three or so copies of other books from the Press, business cards and some other swag that I can’t think of. Oh, and Hershey’s Kisses. (That always gets people to stop – it’s something I learned in training.)

The pictures will cost $50 to print – each. The clip hangers cost me $.99. The hanger contraption is something that is in my mind, but I don’t know if they sell them. I have to search the internet for it.

I’m have to find my list of places to go and make up my list of appearances.

God, I’m nervous.